PHOTOS: Entrepreneur Peter Thiel at Franklin Institute

Zack Seward, editor-in-chief at Technical.ly, Peter Thiel, and Karin Copelan, executive director of the Arts & Business Council of Philadelphia.

The sold-out crowd of 400 business leaders, entrepreneurs and students.

Mark Samuels, senior vice president marketing officer at SEI, Ellen Weber, executive director of Fox School of Business's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute, Jon Gosier, founder of Market Atlas and Partner and Third Cohort Capital, and Richard Vague, managing partner at Gabriel Investments.

Peter Thiel and Zack Seward, editor-in-chief at Technical.ly. Words of wisdom from Thiel: You should never compete with anyone but yourself. If you look at your competition, then your field of growth gets smaller, and you get off task.

After the session, in Franklin Hall, guests were able to meet with Thiel and get their copy of his new book, Zero to One, signed.

Guest at reception. Theil is a little disillusioned about progress. In his book he shares that, “In the last 40 years in the technology world we’ve had enormous progress in the world of bits, but not as much in the world of atoms.” The notion is encapsulated in the tagline of Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founders Fund: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”

Some guests took the opportunity to perfect their 30-second elevator pitch with Thiel.